As for the “specially equipped” wards, he knew what they amounted to: two outbuildings from which the other patients had been hastily evacuated, whose windows had been hermetically sealed, and round which a sanitary cordon had been set.
The only hope was that the outbreak would die a natural death; it certainly wouldn’t be arrested by the measures the authorities had so far devised.
Nevertheless, that night the official communique was still optimistic.
On the following day Ransdoc announced that the rules laid down by the local administration had won general approval and already thirty sick persons had reported.
Castel rang up Rieux.
“How many beds are there in the special wards?”
“Eighty.”
“Surely there are far more than thirty cases in the town?”
“Don’t forget there are two sorts of cases: those who take fright, and those—they’re the majority—who don’t have time to do so.”
“I see. Are they checking up on the burials?”
“No.
I told Richard over the phone that energetic measures were needed, not just words; we’d got to set up a real barrier against the disease, otherwise we might just as well do nothing.”
“Yes? And what did he say?”
“Nothing doing. He hadn’t the powers.
In my opinion, it’s going to get worse.”
That was so. Within three days both wards were full.
According to Richard, there was talk of requisitioning a school and opening an auxiliary hospital.
Meanwhile Rieux continued incising buboes and waiting for the anti-plague serum.
Castel went back to his old books and spent long hours in the public library.
“Those rats died of plague,” was his conclusion, “or of something extremely like it. And they’ve loosed on the town tens of thousands of fleas, which will spread the infection in geometrical progression unless it’s checked in time.”
Rieux said nothing.
About this time the weather appeared set fair, and the sun had drawn up the last puddles left by the recent rain.
There was a serene blue sky flooded with golden light each morning, with sometimes a drone of planes in the rising heat—all seemed well with the world.
And yet within four days the fever had made four startling strides: sixteen deaths, twenty-four, twenty-eight, and thirty-two.
On the fourth day the opening of the auxiliary hospital in the premises of a primary school was officially announced.
The local population, who so far had made a point of masking their anxiety by facetious comments, now seemed tongue-tied and went their ways with gloomy faces.
Rieux decided to ring up the Prefect.
“The regulations don’t go anywhere near far enough.”
“Yes,” the Prefect replied. “I’ve seen the statistics and, as you say, they’re most perturbing.”
“They’re more than perturbing; they’re conclusive.”
“I’ll ask government for orders.”
When Rieux next met Castel, the Prefect’s remark was still rankling.
“Orders!” he said scornfully.
“When what’s needed is imagination.”
“Any news of the serum?”
“It’ll come this week.”
The Prefect sent instructions to Rieux, through Richard, asking him to draw up a minute to be transmitted for orders to the central administration of the colony.
Rieux included in it a clinical diagnosis and statistics of the epidemic.
On that day forty deaths were reported.
The Prefect took the responsibility, as he put it, of tightening up the new regulations.
Compulsory declaration of all cases of fever and their isolation were to be strictly enforced.
The residences of sick people were to be shut up and disinfected; persons living in the same house were to go into quarantine; burials were to be supervised by the local authorities—in a manner which will be described later on.
Next day the serum arrived by plane.
There was enough for immediate requirements, but not enough if the epidemic were to spread.
In reply to his telegram Rieux was informed that the emergency reserve stock was exhausted, but that a new supply was in preparation.
Meanwhile, from all the outlying districts, spring was making its progress into the town.
Thousands of roses wilted in the flower-venders’ baskets in the marketplaces and along the streets, and the air was heavy with their cloying perfume.
Outwardly, indeed, this spring was like any other.
The streetcars were always packed at the rush hours, empty and untidy during the rest of the day.
Tarrou watched the little man, and the little old man spat on the cats.